Relatively fresh from our daytripper stay at JFK’s TWA Hotel, we nevertheless have to make one last lengthy sojourn to return home to Canada.
The Travel Deities work in mysterious ways, and so we hoped our return trip would look like this:
Victoria Falls -> Nairobi -> New York (JFK) -> Toronto
Instead it looks like this:
Victoria Falls -> Nairobi -> New York (JFK) -> New York (LGA) -> Toronto -> Ottawa
Yes, adding in an extra flight made the price cheaper for reasons that will forever remain a mystery.
And not just slightly cheaper – much, much cheaper.
We tried calling in to have our tickets adjusted – either to rebook our flight just to Toronto, or even to have our flight moved later. But every time they tried to adjust it, they got an error code. So we were stuck.
Why not just grab our bags in Toronto and quietly slip from the airport? Well, this is called skiplagging and airlines hate it. Air Canada so much that they reserve the right to ban you from the airline.
This is a serious threat in Canada, where we really only have one-and-a-half airlines. So we’re stuck on an extra flight to Ottawa.
We’re also stuck waking up at 2:30 am to make our 6 am departure. Just before leaving, we realize that one of our hard-sided suitcases has fractured – we can only hope it holds together long enough to make the return trip.
Only a short (but expensive) drive to LeGuardia, fortunately, and the Air Canada desk is open more than two hours in advance. We drop our bags and head to security, grateful both for the increased weight limit offered by our business class tickets and the desk agent who did not notice one luggage wheel was on the verge of snapping off.
Off to security, where the line is already long – only one station is taking people through. The sign said 5 minutes wait, but it’s easily 15 minutes before we reach the front of the line.
iPads out, shoes off, the whole 9 yards – and an extra 10 minute wait for me when I forget about a bottle of water buried at the bottom of my bag. Oops.
Then to the Terminal B Maple Leaf lounge, which opens at 4:30 am – 3 minutes after we reach the doors.
Source: Air Canada – Maple Leaf Lounge LaGuardia
I’m too sleep deprived to remember to take photos of the whole lounge, and Air Canada has little in the way of photos. But here’s a video tour for anyone interested:
Quite nice, and even has a hot breakfast. A welcome surprise this early in the morning:
The app is saying that the plane is boarding right at departure time, but our boarding passes say it’s 40 minutes before departure. Turns out our boarding passes are right – we walk right up to the gate and straight onto the plane. Boarding finishes early, and so off we go.
No photos from the departure – I was passed out cold. No breakfast for me, either, though I did spot some sort of omelette-like meal being passed around. Not many takers at 6:45 am.
Hello, Toronto!
Touchdown YYZ Terminal 1. We have a connecting flight, so we’re re-routed to a special customs booth just outside of domestic departures. We used the ArriveCan app in advance, so it goes quickly – as it usually does. Automated customs programs can be huge timesavers.
Off to the domestic Maple Leaf Lounge near the D gates. Challenging to find four seats together here, but we somehow manage. The food selection is even more extensive, and includes Kettleman’s bagels. (Plus pancakes, sausages, hashbrowns, chocolate muffins, and so on.)
Lured by the siren song of second breakfast, I once more forget to take my own photographs. Air Canada’s press photos are surprisingly few and far between:
Here’s the only view I care about:
It’s a 90 minute layover, but once you factor in the time for customs and walking, we really only have along enough for breakfast before it’s time to head to the next gate. Boarding is also early, and we wait perhaps 5 minutes before we walk on.
One of the risks you run with Air Canada is that of being “Rouged” – when you are unexpectedly shunted onto one of their older planes, the types that are often used for their discount carrier “Rouge”.
We seem to have been “Rouged” on our Toronto to Ottawa flight. Our new plane lacks in-flight entertainment, but the leg room is excellent. With a total flight time of 60 minutes – only 37 minutes of which are spent in the air – it’s not a big deal. It was much more annoying on a Toronto to Calgary flight where our premium economy seats simply didn’t exist (we were refunded the extra cost over economy).
Hello, Ottawa!
As much as it was ridiculous to add in this extra leg, there are some upsides – the biggest of which is not having to fight our way out of Pearson Airport.
But there is a trade-off – we must once more face the challenge of finding a shuttle service that will take us home. This is much less of an issue when getting to Toronto, but from Ottawa? Even more expensive than we’d feared – and we’re typically prepared to pay double any reasonable rate if it means we will definitely reach our intended destination.
We briefly considered booking in an Uber XL, which can be booked up to 90 days in advance. But we have a lot of luggage – so it felt like there was a risk we could end up overfilling whatever car comes to pick us up. We settle instead for contacting one of the drivers we’ve worked with before. He’s coming out of Toronto, but it’s still less expensive than working with an Ottawa company.
The question was, of course, will he actually show – it’s our first time working with him directly, and we’re paying him by online transfer rather than credit card. So we’ll have few options if he bails on us.
But no, our driver is right where he said he’d be – and we all pile into the Escalade with room to spare.
It’s a very quiet drive back. We’re all still exhausted. But we get in at a reasonable time and make significant headway on unpacking, and my wife’s perpetual nemesis – laundry. At last count, she needs to do roughly 25 loads before we’ll be back to ‘laundry zero’.
Laundry notwithstanding, we’re looking forward to being in one place for a while. We all have much to catch up on, though we’ve still booked ourselves on a two-week-long Quebec trip in mid-June.
Our Quebec trip will be live posted on www.unknownlongitude.com, where we will also continue to post weekly. Our next cruise will be from Papeete, Tahiti to Valparaiso, Chile in October 2025. With pre & post adventures.
Thank you all so much for your kind words about our voyage, writing and photos. It’s been great having you along for the ride!